Politics

Supreme Court allows more private money in election campaigns. Supreme Court lifts limits on how much in total one person can donate Its 5-4 ruling means wealthy donors can give to as many campaigns as they wantPeople can still only give a maximum of $5,200 to a single candidateCritics warn the ruling further undermines already weakened campaign finance laws Washington (CNN) -- If you're rich and want to give money to a lot of political campaigns, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that you can.

The 5-4 ruling eliminated limits on how much money people can donate in total in one election season. However, the decision left intact the current $5,200 limit on how much an individual can give to any single candidate during a two-year election cycle. Until now, an individual donor could give up to $123,200 per cycle. The ruling means a wealthy liberal or conservative donor can give as much money as desired to federal election candidates across the country, as long as no candidate receives more than the $5,200 cap. Are campaign donations a form of free speech?

Millions in farm subsidies flow freely to DC residents who don't actually farm. "All of it is entirely legal," said Adam Andrzejewski, founder of Open the Books, a group that created an online database and mobile app to track the subsidies.

The Department of Agriculture awarded nearly $178 billion in farm subsidies between 1995 and 2012, and another $39 billion in conservation subsidies, according to a second watchdog group, the Environmental Working Group. Taxpayer subsidies to U.S. farmers predate the Great Depression, but the program has seen few reforms over the years and is now "out of control," Andrzejewski said. Billions once spent to keep family farms from going under now go mainly to agribusiness giants, like Monsanto and ADM, and to wealthy landowners who have never farmed. To illustrate just how far the subsidy program has strayed from its original purpose, Open the Books calculated payments going to three major cities with few, if any, modern ties to farming: Washington, D.C., New York City and Chicago.

The Browns don't farm.
House Democrats push legislation to overturn Citizens United ruling. A pair of House Democrats introduced legislation Tuesday to overturn the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling that freed corporations to spend unlimited money on elections.

Sponsored by Reps. John Conyers (Mich.), senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, and Donna Edwards (D-Md.), the proposal would amend the Constitution to empower Congress and the states to limit corporate spending on political activities. “Last year, the Supreme Court overturned decades of law and declared open season on our democracy,” Conyers said in a news release.

“It is individual voters who should determine the future of this nation, not corporate money.” In the controversial Citizens United decision, the Supreme Court ruled that government limits on corporate funding of political broadcasts for or against individual candidates violate the rights to free speech guaranteed under the Constitution.
Anti-Immigrant New Mexico Governor Reveals Her Grandparents Were Undocumented Immigrants. By Marie Diamond on September 9, 2011 at 9:40 am "Anti-Immigrant New Mexico Governor Reveals Her Grandparents Were Undocumented Immigrants" New Mexico Gov.

Susana Martinez (R) New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez (R) has long been known for her vitriolic rhetoric against undocumented immigrants.
SEC confirms Congress above insider trading laws. Laura Wells, Green Party candidate for governor, arrested at Whitman-Brown debate : SFGate: Politics Blog. The big Whitman-Brown California gubernatorial debate at Dominican College in San Rafael already has plenty of drama going — protesters from the California Nurses Association and other groups here in force.

And Laura Wells, the Green Party candidate for governor, was arrested just minutes ago and put into a patrol car. Marnie Glickman, the spokeswoman for Wells, said that the two had tickets to the debate and were entering Angelico Hall, when they were pulled aside by authorities. She said that they were told that they could not enter because of her status as a gubernatorial candidate. Comrade Garofoli notes that “of course, this being the Bay Area, this isn’t the first time that a Green Party candidate got arrested outside a major office debate. In 2000, the Green nominee for U.S.
Democratic governor fires top environment official for not fast-tracking coal plant permit. Democratic governor fires top environment official for not fast-tracking coal plant permit Kansas Environment Secretary Fired for Not Fast-Tracking Coal Plant Permit Apparently in Kansas, regulating coal-fired power plants is not what the state's top environment official is supposed to do.

Health and Environment Secretary Rod Bremby was replaced earlier this week, after first refusing the governor's 'offer' to step down and take the position of Cabinet transition director—and all signs point to Bremby's firm stance against coal-fired power plants as the reason for the decision. Earthjustice says that when Mark Parkinson replaced Kathleen Sebelius as governor, he made a deal with the Sunflower coal plant seeking to obtain a permit before new regulations go into effect in January. So what does the governor do? FAIR USE NOTICE.